Seagraves, "holding down a claim" near Rob, had come to see his neighboring "bach" because feeling the need of company; but now that he was near enough to hear him prancing about getting supper, he was content to lie alone on a slope of the green sod. The silence of the prairie at night was well-nigh terrible. Many a night, as Seagraves lay in his bunk against the side of his cabin, he would strain his ear to hear the slightest sound, and be listening thus sometimes for minutes before the squeak of a mouse or the step of a passing fox came as a relief to the aching sense. In the daytime, however, and especially on a morning, the prairie was another thing. The pigeons, the larks, the cranes, the multitudinous voices of the ground-birds and snipes and insects, made the air pulsate with sound--a chorus that died away into an infinite murmur of music. "Hello, Seagraves!" yelled Rob from the door. "The biscuit are 'most done." Seagraves did not speak, only nodded his head, and slowly rose. The faint clouds in the west were getting a superb flame-color above and a misty purple below, and the sun had pierced them with lances of yellow light. As the air grew denser with moisture, the sounds of neighboring life began to reach the ear. Children screamed and laughed, and afar off a woman was singing a lullaby. The rattle of wagons and the voices of men speaking to their teams multiplied. Ducks in a neighboring lowland were quacking sociably. The whole scene took hold upon Seagraves with irresistible power. "It is American," he exclaimed. "No other land or time can match this mellow air, this wealth of color, much less the strange social conditions of life on this sunlit Dakota prairie." Rob, though visibly affected by the scene also, couldn't let his biscuit spoil or go without proper attention. "Say, ain't y' comin' t' grub?" he asked impatiently. "In a minute," replied his friend, taking a last wistful look at the scene. "I want one more look at the landscape." "Landscape be blessed! If you'd been breakin' all day--Come, take that stool an' draw up." "No; I'll take the candle-box." "Not much. I know what manners are, if I am a bull-driver." Seagraves took the three-legged and rather precarious-looking stool and drew up to the table, which was a flat broad box nailed up against the side of the wall, with two strips of board spiked at the outer corners for legs. "How's that f'r a lay-out?" Rob inquired proudly. "Well, you have spread yourself! Biscuit and canned peaches and sardines and cheese. Why, this is--is--prodigal." "It ain't nothin' else."